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I see a few translations around, I like the poetic Headless Tao and the one at www.thetaoi.info .. but these I have seen are quite different, yes they mean practically the same but they can be interpreted differently. Anyone recommend a translation?

If any Taoist could give me a summary of the practises of Tao.
It incorporates Zen Buddhist meditation?
Any recommended reads?

Thanks

--------------------May Peace and fellicity smile on those who seek it.

If any Taoist could give me a summary of the practises of Tao.It incorporates Zen Buddhist meditation?Any recommended reads?

No, you can't really get a summarry of the practises of dao. Start with the spelling: Dao.. daodejing. Actually, let me try and summarise a few aspects of daoism., probably good mental excercise.

There is this thing called the dao, and it's better to be aligned with it and moving in harmony with it. The daoists are simply trying to align themselves with the natural order of the universe.

Daoism avoids dogma. Because the daoist acknowledges the dynamic nature of the universe and the inherent process of change within all systems no single rule is applicable in all situations. A Buddhist says "don't kill ever." But a daoist might kill. It all depends on the situation. Sometimes it might even be best to rigidly hold to dogmatic beliefs, who knows. The I Ching fleshes out this process of change. Alfred Huang's translation called "The complete I Ching" is the only translation worth reading. Don't bother if you don't have this translation. Buncha western scholars translating from old chinese to new chinese to german to english, and they aren't even daoists and some translators think the I Ching is just a silly book of superstitions. Not the case with Huang's translation.

Daoists don't neglect any aspect of their being. Buddhists focus on the mind and ignore their bodies, which is imbalanced and therefore contrary to flowing with the dao. Martial arts are an important aspect of daoism. Especially Taijiquan (Tai Chi) Bagua zhang (Pa Qua Chang) and Shing Yi quan. This and qi gong.

Daoists cultivate balance in their bodies and this leads to enlightenment and all that shit people are always trying to get out of spirituality. Rather than actively seek an enlightened state, the daoists look into their bodies and allow the state to emerge naturally. This is the path of non-doing their always talking about.

It all has to do with the concept of emptiness. The empty space in a wall is what allows a window to be a window. Without the space of a valley, there is no valley. A valley is defined by it's emptiness. The emptiness of a drum creates the sound. The emptiness above the ground allows a tree to grow into it. Where some spiritual practices seek to actively grow a tree, the daoist creates an empty space and the correct conditions and the tree grows on its own.

In qi gong and meditative practices like the microcosmic orbit, the daoist does not move the energy in the pattern from the crotch to the head. The daoist shuts up and quiets down enough to notice that the microcosmic orbit happens.

Direct experience is the most important aspect of cultivating a relationship with the dao. Words are worthless and are incapable of communicating much. Daoists are always pointing out that the dao that can be put into words is not the true dao. So, treat everything I've told you as a lie. The only way to figure any of this out is with a teacher. Otherwise there's no point. Good luck.

Oh.. and zen meditation is buddhist... zen buddhism has roots in daoism... chuang zhu I believe is the one who inspired zen, he was a daoist.

I know all the words are worthless, but you should seriously check out this book if you are interested in daoism. It's the biography of a genuine daoist ascetic. The author is deng-ming dao and the title is Chronicles of Tao. You'll learn more about daoism in that book than from the daodejing (Tao Te Ching). It's a rad book... the setting is a really harsh time in China's history.. very apocalyptic, and there's all kinds of crazy shit.. martial arts, organized crime.. opium smoking, encounters with demons in the catacombs of holy mountains... cool shit. The guy is still alive and teaches martial arts, and the book was written by one of his students. Pretty neat check it out.

in ancient china, daoism (taoism), confucianism, and buddhism were able to get along fairly well (china was sometimes called 'the land of the three religions')...there is a famous story (& painting) of three masters (taoist, cconfucianist, & buddhist) who used to get together and discuss things (& drink tea, no doubt)... and one night it was getting late, and the master of the house offered to walk the other 2 priests partway home... and they got re-engaged in their discussion as they were walking through the evening air, and suddenly noticed that they had walked all the way to one of the other priest's house (instead of partway) and all three of them burst out into uproarious laughter...heh...

But didn't Buddha renounce ascetism and started to take care of his body before he reached enlightenment under the famous bodhi tree? That's what the whole "middle way" thing is about in buddhism.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "taking care of his body."

An image to explain the difference between buddhism and daoism:

The Buddhist ascends to the heavens staring up at the sky, and the daoist ascends looking down into his body. Daoist practices are rooted in an understanding of one's body, whereas a buddhist focuses on his mind. This is just a way to understand daoism relative to buddhism, though, cause the truth is a daoist cultivates his body in order to cultivate his mind so he can better cultivate his body which in turn will fuel his mind and so on...

For example I was listening to a Tibetan buddhist talking about buddhist practices at this gathering once. He was explaining an excercise for cultivating compassion. The meditation involved imagining all the negative horrible evil gross cosmically disgusting stuff of the universe floating into your body and depositing there and then you would imagine all the nice beautiful healthiness of your body go out into the universe. This is pretty typical of the buddhist attitude towards the body.

On a documentary a Zen buddhist was explaining how when he used to meditate for ten hours a day his knee would hurt like a bitch, so he would "become one" with the pain. The daoists have found postures where the body is well aligned and open so that when they do marathon meditations they don't hurt.

Back in the early days of the Shaolin temple, famous for its martial arts, of course, their excercises were originally designed to get all the fat gross unfit buddhist monks healthier because they were falling asleep during long meditations. This shows the connection between mind and body that the daoists have realized is so important.

I think the general buddhist attitude I've come across and outlined over the past 3 paragraphs is pretty silly. Even when the buddhists excercise and become healthy and train martial arts like in the shaolin temple they only maintain their bodies enough to get into their sitting meditations as though the body is a transport unit for a meditator. But if the mind is worth cultivating, then why isn't the body as well? The mind moves the limbs to gather food to power the mind. This is the fundamental yin and yang of the biological organism. The daoists seek to balance these powers.

Daoists = dragonflies,

buddhist = honey bee spiritual drones.

I'm interested in talking about this more, maybe in another thread, cause then other people would get in on it, so if any buddhists want to better explain buddhism to me or show me why I'm wrong, go for it. But please don't just clutter up space with worthless defensive utterings because you invested all this time in reading a book by the dalai lama and now you're offended that I would dispute the religion you've blindly chosen to follow like so many honey bees.

Quote:I'm interested in talking about this more, maybe in another thread, cause then other people would get in on it, so if any buddhists want to better explain buddhism to me or show me why I'm wrong, go for it.

Yeah, that would be an interesting discussion. But I don't think I could explain the position of the buddhist churches, someone more knowledgeable would have to do that. I am more interested in what the original scriptures say, and that's often very different from what the church authorities say. For example, the Mahayana tradition is vegetarian I think, but Buddha was not a vegetarian. Another example: Roman Catholics call their priest "Father", but according to the Bible, Jesus specifically told his disciples not to use that title. Maybe that's a topic for a third thread.

I so far like the Stan Rosenthal's translation. Also wonder if the original was poetic like the Headless Tao, won't know unless I learn ancient Chinese I guess :P

Also very good reviews for the Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English translation at Amazon. I found the Complete I Ching at Amazon. Still wonder whats so different if they are supposed to be accurate "translations" ?

--------------------May Peace and fellicity smile on those who seek it.

Nemesis: The problem is that lots of people who translated it don't understand it. Alfred Huang is a daoist who studied the I Ching for a long time under other daoist masters. Other authors don't understand the principles behind the words, so their translations lack continuity. They aren't written in a way that communicated daoist philosophy.